e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Author: Jim Farmer

  • Blackboard and MoodleRooms: An insight to private equity

    There has been speculation about Blackboard’s acquisition of MoodleRooms and its announcements about support of open-source learning systems. This is also an opportunity to see decision-making by Blackboard owner Providence Equity. The motivation of a private equity firm is rapid increase in the value of its assets. Some of Blackboard initiatives may take several years to take final form; perhaps longer than private equity objectives permit.

    Blackboard describes their software business saying: “We typically license our individual software applications either on a stand-alone basis or bundled as part of one of our six product lines: Blackboard Learn Blackboard Transact Blackboard Connect Blackboard Mobile Blackboard Collaborate and Blackboard Analytics.” Professional services account for 8% of revenue; product for 92%.

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  • U.S. Copyright Infringement – U.S. Strikes in New Zealand

    On Friday January 20, two helicopters and “76 police staff, including armed offenders squad members” raided the home of Kim Dotcom north of Auckland, New Zealand. He was sought by the U.S. for copyright infringement and racketeering under an indictment from the U.S. District Court of Virginia, Eastern Division. Three associates were also arrested.

    The issues of whether links to documents can be copyright infringement, acts that preclude DMCA safe harbor, and barring legitimate users from their files may be resolved as two legal teams—the U.S. Department of Justice and a yet to be named legal team representing “the Mega Conspiracy” in the U.S.—clash in Virginia These are issues that will affect colleges and universities because of the similarity between these sites and the way some students use the Internet.

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  • U.S. Claims Global Jurisdiction of .net and .com Web Sites: Is .edu Next?

    On January 13, a UK magistrate ruled a 23-year-old student can be extradited to the United States for running a website posting links to pirated TV shows and films; this despite significant doubts over whether such sites break any UK laws. He has become the “guinea pig” of expansive U.S. justice.

    About four years ago Richard O’Dwyer, a computing student at Sheffield Hallam University, began a website registered as TVSHACK.net. It “posted links to pirated material. It did not directly host any files, which meant, according to the student’s lawyers, that it acted as little more than a Google-type search engine and did not breach copyright.” The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized the domain name in July 2010 and subsequently TVSHACK.cc in November. (Seizure must be challenged with ten business days, difficult for someone outside the U.S.).

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  • Protecting the Security of Student Data: Krebs v Rutgers, a case study

    In 1992 seven students at Rutgers University sought federal court action to compel University administrators to protect their Social Security Numbers (SSN) from dissemination. The case became known as Krebs v Rutgers. It is often cited as guidance for what must be done to protect privacy from promiscuous use of SSN. The court record tells their story.

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  • Protecting the Security of Student Data: CollegeNet v XAP, A Case Study

    In her blog “Law, Policy and IT” Tracy Mitrano expressed a concern: protecting student privacy as colleges and universities outsource information processing with external servicers. To ensure education records are protected, she writes, outsourcing contracts must explicitly detail the protection to be provided student data. She suggested contract provisions should require an entity comply with federal law including the Federal Education Rights Privacy Act. FERPA is one of the United States’ earliest public privacy laws enacted more than thirty years ago. She said “the Department of Education has already made clear that outsourcing these records does not alleviate the institution of its obligations under this law.” Her recommendation would build a “chain of responsibility” for the privacy and security of student education records. She observes these records have become “an important and permanent marker of an individual in a competitive society currently plagued by high unemployment rates even among college and professional school graduates in an era where corporations and firms routinely amass information from a variety of sources in the course of hiring.”

    Student data have been disclosed and sold without permission by external vendors. One example is described in the court records of CollegeNet Inc. v XAP Corporation, U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.

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  • A “Bold Idea” Essential for Student Privacy

    In Tracy Mitrano’s October 31, 2001 blog “FERPA, GLBA and HIPAA In Vendor Contract,” there was “a bold proposal.” She posited that most important action that can be taken to protect student privacy is a contractual requirement that contractors follow the same privacy requirements—including FERPA (Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act)—as colleges and universities themselves follow. Mitrano, is a lawyer in Cornell University’s Office of VP for Information Technology. She has written about intellectual property issues in universities.

    Mitrano warns this will not be easy: “Contract lawyers associated with Internet companies have heard of these laws, but are not knowledgeable about them.”

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  • The Datatel-SunGard Higher Education Merger

    This is a guest post from Jim Farmer, Chairman of Sigma Systems, Inc.

    [Editor’s note: I have had this post from Jim for a while now and am only now getting a chance to publish it. Apologies to Jim and to you.]

    On August 4th Hellman-Friedman LLC filed with the Security and Exchange Commission a planned press release announcing the merger of Datatel and SunGard Higher Education. The SEC filing did note the merger excluded the SunGard Higher Education K-12 Education business, which had been combined with higher education only a few months ago.

    Hellman-Friedman LLC, a private equity firm, and partners own Datatel. Hellman-Friedman was offering $1.775 billion for the higher education part of SunGard Higher Education to create a merged firm..

    SunGard Inc. acquired Systems and Computer Technology (SCT) in February 2004. In March 2005 SunGard Inc. itself was acquired by private equity firm Silver Lakes Partners.

    At that time Campus Technology’s John Savarese summarized the issue:

    In a financial world in which takeovers are often motivated by the desire to achieve economies through radical restructuring or cost-cutting, or where buyers purchase a company because they see the opportunity to quickly sell off assets, customers often have reason to be nervous. And higher ed customers have an added reason to worry: Running a university or college is not just another vertical market; successful software vendors have taken years to tune their offerings to the special needs and operating culture of the campus. Understandably, there is always the concern that new owners may not understand the importance of doing business in the native language of academe.

    Another issue. On April 10th 2011 Peter Thiel—a co-founder of payPal, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist—said “We’re in a Bubble … It’s Higher Education.

    Tech Crunch’s Sarah Lacy reported

    Instead, for Thiel, the bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble. “A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” he says. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in the United States.”

    “Like any good bubble, this belief– while rooted in truth– gets pushed to unhealthy levels.”

    A look at the numbers may suggest Hellman-Friedman alternatives.

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